In a recent conversation with eonmusic, John Cooper shared why he chose to mock critics in the new Skillet song, ‘Unpopular.’
“It was, and it was kind of tongue in cheek, and kind of in a funny way because the point we were trying to make is that most everybody, especially young people that have grown up with social media – they’re not necessarily all young – but they know what it’s like just to get people not just disagreeing with you, but hating you; that’s intense, yeah?” the singer replied when asked how it felt to turn things around on the haters with ‘Unpopular.’
He continued, “And so they live with it, and so I thought it’ll be funny to put up some of these things like; ‘girls shouldn’t be in rock and roll’; and then the video shows our girls, like, just crushing it, so I thought it was kind of funny, and I thought I’d poke fun about it.”
Skillet released the single ‘Unpopular’ on August 9, 2024, and revealed their twelfth album, ‘Revolution,’ which they independently launched on November 1, 2024.
Cooper previously described the new track as having a ‘raw’ sound compared to their last album, ‘Dominion’—saying it’s ‘more rocking.’ The vocalist explained, “It’s saying the world’s gone so nuts that the things the world loves are so disgusting and so crazy—like, in a world gone mad, would you really want to be popular? That’s kind of the joke of the song.”
“Do you want to be on the side of the people cheering for—Oh, it’s so great! Getting to watch the Olympic ceremony with my kids and seeing drag queens act like they’re doing a Lord’s Supper imitation. Isn’t that great? We’re so popular,” Cooper added.
The musician also shared, “So we’re like, no, I don’t wanna be on that team. I want to be on the side of like normal people.”
Cooper said the song reflects the band’s message and the members “want to be on the side with people that are like, ‘Oh, I still kind of like raising my family and going to church and loving my kids and not being weird and loving freedom.’”
‘Revolution’ is their first album in almost three years, following ‘Dominion’ in January 2022.